


that makes me or undoes me quite

by metonomia



Category: New Testament
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-21
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:25:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonomia/pseuds/metonomia





	that makes me or undoes me quite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teyla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/gifts).



Two days out from Jerusalem, Yeshua stops walking, stops talking, and he feels the others slowly quiet too, attentive, expecting a teaching, but he pays them no mind. He can see ahead the outline of the Temple Mount, harsh beauty thrusting out of a harsh and beautiful land, and that other part of him that he knows but has never understood relishes the feel of its shape against his memory. People built this for his Father, for his Father’s glory and mercy and abundance, for his Father’s terror and might, and that part of him that knows he is his Father’s son feels a thrill of power at the thought.  
Behind him Simon and the rest have begun talking again, and he feels a rough palm touch his shoulder.  
“Not too much with the mysticism, Rabbi,” Judas says. Yeshua smiles at him, wrenching himself back from the heavens.  
“We are going to Jerusalem, Judas,” he says. “How can it not be mystical?”  
“Just…don’t get ahead of yourself,” Judas warns, hand still clutching his shoulder. “We have too much yet to do for you to lose sight of it now in favor of something higher.”  
“I understand,” Yeshua tells him, and he does, but at the same time he can’t help feeling that he is lying to his friend, because he also understands that he cannot stay to see their plans through to the end, and what is worse, he cannot tell Judas of his own terrible role to play in what is to come.

+

He has spent his human life being taught that he ought to desire the goodness of the Lord above all else, and he could never really reconcile his father’s image of his Father with the voice of his other self inside, telling him that his Father’s will is that he die . Now he must reconcile also with a Father who not only needs him to die, but who needs him to leave behind this human life that he has made for himself, his mother, his father, his friends. He tells the crowds that gather to give up all their earthly attachments, and it is not hypocrisy, because he will give his own up without hesitation, but he cannot help think of all that he will lose.

+

Yeshua wrenches his mind back once again from that otherness to the dusty road in front of him now.  
“Talk to me, Judas,” he says. The rest of the group has moved ahead of them, full of their own joys and sorrows, sharing ideas and debating Yeshua’s latest teachings.  
“What would you hear, Rabbi?”  
“None of that,” he snaps. “Talk to _me_.” Judas smiles in provocation, accepting the unsaid challenge. Since he joined Yeshua’s crowd, they have tested each other, matched each other, bettered each other.  
“They say the Romans will increase taxes again,” Judas says.  
“We cannot change that,” Yeshua reminds him.  
“We should! Our taxes should go to the Temple, to the Lord, to helping our own people, not these…” he is so angry he can’t even find a name for their Roman overlords, and now it is Yeshua’s turn to place a hand on his shoulder, comforting and warning.  
“Or we should change the hearts of the people so that they make the most of what they do have to help each other with.”  
“Always with the hearts, Yeshua!” He knows Judas is angry, and he knows his anger is righteous, but it has no place in Yeshua’s plans.  
“It’s what lets us reflect my Father’s love,” he says serenely, fully aware his lack of reaction will only upset Judas further. He enjoys these moments, the knowledge that both of them desire the same end but that Judas will never understand his way of getting there, the knowledge that he alone knows his Father’s plans.  
They walk together towards the city - it is such a short road, considering, but their time seems to extend infinitely - barefoot and windblown, the teacher and the student indistinguishable as they argue affectionately.

+

Judas has followed Yeshua about Jerusalem for days now, and there has been no change in the rabbi’s teachings. There was a moment, when he saw Yeshua’s rage in the Temple, when the rabbi became the messiah for an instant, attacking the sickness in the land, overturning the hypocrites with the might of his anger. But since then, Yeshua has been all soft, sad wisdom, and Judas thinks any spark of fight has gone out of him, and it makes him burn in turn with his own anger. There are people in this city who would rise at a word from him, who would gladly die for Israel’s people. They could turn the Romans out from the holy city; there is a precedent, and they are strong in their hatred of this Gentile corruption.  
There _is_ more fighting these days, but it makes no progress, only divides Judas further from his beloved teacher. He cannot understand why Yeshua holds so firmly to this inaction.  
“You are the Messiah!” he cannot keep from yelling once, and though Yeshua looks at him sharply, tells him to hush, he refuses. “You are here to be our salvation, so save us!”  
“The enemy I am here to defeat is not one to be found in the Eagle or in the tax collector’s basket,” is all Yeshua will say.  
“That is not an answer.”  
“It is the truth.”  
“It makes no sense! You can heal and feed and teach all you like, but it will not fix our people.”  
Judas knows that if he were a better person, a more faithful believer, even a better friend, he would calm down, find the truth in Yeshua’s words, and accept the rabbi’s plan. But he cannot. All he can think is that Yeshua is abandoning his own people, and perhaps Judas needs to take charge if they are to be saved. Perhaps Yeshua is not the leader they thought him to be, and if so, then Judas thinks that he must put his love for his people before his love for Yeshua, and do what must be done.


End file.
